


In the Beginning

by buttercups3



Series: Taurean Birthday Bash [2]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Early Blackout, Gay Sex, M/M, Masturbation, Nearly PWP, episodic, first person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:14:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1578065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercups3/pseuds/buttercups3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Miles and Bass go AWOL from Parris Island, they embark on an eerie couple of months. This is the closest they'll ever come to a honeymoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maywitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maywitch/gifts).



> Happy belated birthday Maywitch! I'm sorry this is so melancholy.

**_Eight Weeks Post-Blackout: Miles_ **

I push all the way into him, and his insides cling to me like they’ve been desperate for me all day. His legs are open wide, me on my knees between them, his bare back pushed flush against a tree, light filtering through the rich, green leaves of late summer. It smells like plants and dew, our butts and legs wet from the fresh earth. His pale eyelashes have fluttered closed, and I nuzzle his cheek with my chin to get him to open his eyes, so I can bask in their glittering blue. Sure enough, they open, and a small smile inadvertently claims the corners of my mouth.

Christ, it’s like we’re here at the beginning of the world, but we fit better than any stupid Adam and Eve. Also no one would confuse the world we’re in with The Garden – dead, bloated bodies in the two ghost-cities we’ve passed and the bloody, trash-strewn chaos of society undone. We’re deep in the forest to avoid the stink. But Bass and I still have each other, and there is something comforting in that. It helps to block out the other shit, if only for this moment.

Bass pushes his hands against my bare chest and I settle back in the grass so that he can straddle me, leaning forward so I hit a satisfying angle inside him for both of us. We confirm it with a mutual groan. I slide one hand down his back, indented by the pattern of the bark, while my other hand glides along his erection – all golden-pink in the afternoon light. Perfect.

“Miles!” He comes in a rush with me barely even stroking him. I get it – it’s almost like we’ve never done this before. I’m excited too – right at my edge. I keep my right hand soothingly on his cock as it oozes over my fingers, and I grind upward to join him.

My muscles tick and release in a choking set of spasms. I moan, I writhe, as he grips my biceps tightly. He is the only thing I have left – maybe the only thing I’ve ever had. I’m so grateful to him. He slips me out and then sinks down on top of me so that we can hold each other for what feels like forever. By the time we even consider letting go, we’re shivering, gooseflesh raised everywhere our bodies aren’t touching, trading warmth.

A crazy thought flicks into my head: _our honeymoon_. I laugh a little as I’m putting back on my pants, but when Bass raises his eyebrows I just shake my head.

* * *

 

**_Eleven Weeks Post-Blackout: Bass_ **

Miles has been staring at the enormous pile of rotting corpses for an awfully long time. I put my hand on his lean, veined arm to urge him onward, but he only flinches away like I’ve branded him with hot pokers. When he turns to me his eyes are black and wide. Jesus, I’ve never seen him like this. I can’t even discern the emotion there. It’s not fear, but neither is it the hollowness after Afghanistan. Whatever it is, it unnerves me, but not nearly as much as what he says:

“Everything’s so… it’s all gone, Bass. Everyone dead. Christ.” He doesn’t sound hysterical – more _quiet_ – and that only makes it worse. 

My throat seizes; I have to get him to stop thinking like that. “Hey, come on, man. We’ve got to get out of Asheville. Cities like this aren’t safe.” 

“But all these bodies. Should we bury them?” 

“Miles, there are thousands of ‘em!” I say in exasperation and give his sleeve an urgent tug. It must have been an epidemic. We’ve both buried our faces in our shirts to mute the hideous stench, but I’m worried we’ll get sick if we hang around much longer. 

“Burn them then?”

“No, we’ve got to keep moving. Find Ben like you said.” 

I finally succeed in leading him away, and we fall back into the woods on the outskirts of the Nantahala National Forest, according to our map. We need to cross the Smoky Mountains, but we silently agree to take on that feat tomorrow. We’ll set up camp once we get deep enough under tree cover and near a water source. These are all things we plan and execute without saying a word. In fact, we talk less and less these days. For the first few weeks of our journey, I filled the void and uncertainty with my voice until Miles finally snapped at me: “For God’s sakes, shut up, Bass! We spend every waking second together. You’ve got nothing new to say!”

Yeah, it stung, and I may have sulked for the rest of the day. But from then on, we’ve taken to spending some number of hours apart around dusk for Miles’ sake. I don’t need the time alone, but if it keeps him from biting my head off, then fine. Miles is wandering off as we speak, mumbling something about water, our canteens rattling on his belt. Well, I guess that leaves me to set up the tent. 

I’m threading the pliable metal poles through the nylon and sorting through a heap of mounting anxieties. For one thing, this should be a time when Miles and I can finally cut loose and screw whenever we want, right? We’ve never had this kind of freedom to just be ourselves. But he’s been acting all distant, and we haven’t even touched in days except when I was dragging him away from those bodies.

Then there was that display of raw nerves: Miles cracking. He can’t do that; he’s my foundation. But part of me has to concede that I was probably better prepared to confront this Blackout than most people, including my best friend. I’d already lost everything two years ago. Perpetual darkness can’t penetrate what’s empty and void. But for Miles, rules gave meaning to life – first imposed by his Pop, then by the Marines. His archaic notions of nobility, good of the whole, right and wrong – that was the order he saw in the world since he’s not pious or philosophical or really even that introspective except to flay himself. This world is going to take some adjusting for him. I wish I could get him to talk it out, maybe get it off his chest, but any attempt will just piss him off. 

I wipe my hands on my pants after a job well done – our lonely little tent pitched in the wilderness – and coax a fire to life. My idle hand happens to rest between my thighs, grazing my crotch, and I stir a little. Well hell, Miles will probably be gone for a while. I might as well unleash some of my agitation. 

I slide down against a tree, my boots flat on the ground and knees drawn up against my body, hand fumbling with my fly as I check my surroundings for intruders. There’s nothing here to disturb me as long as I do it quick, which, as a Marine, I happen to be an expert in. I dip my hand below the waistband of my boxer briefs and pull up the satiny skin beneath, swelling at my own touch. I drip spit directly from my lips to my tip and spread it around, pulling indulgently, feelingly. My balls twist and ache, and in response, I wring myself harder, my eyes drifting shut. 

I pretend Miles’ cracked lips surround it, sucking insistently until he pauses to breathe and lick his lips. Sometimes he’ll even ask me then, “Good?” Miles is a thoughtless dick most of the time, but when he’s making love to you he wants it to be good. Goddamn, his mouth is hot and accommodating as I twitch against his (imaginary) tongue. 

My guts coil up for the finish, and I gasp at the gentle spray on the exposed part of my stomach, wishing I were coming into the warm wet of his throat. I register a gentle rustle on the periphery of my hearing most folks probably wouldn’t even notice. I force open my eyes to meet blackish eyes storming with lust and other complications I don’t care to discern at this moment. Fuck, Miles. I pull myself right on through my high until I’m shivering, eyes shutting again. 

Finally, after waiting perhaps a polite number of minutes for my audible gasping to die down, Miles grunts, “When you’re done whacking it, you want to fry this fish? I cleaned it and everything, but somehow when you cook, it tastes ten times better.” 

I laugh a little, wipe my hand in the grass, and right my clothes to join him at the fire. He does burn every piece of meat he touches. I think about ruffling his raven hair in appreciation of his appalling cooking, but he looks grumpy. I, however, have grown relatively cheery in light of my recent orgasm. 

We don’t say another word to each other until we’re stripping down for the night in our tent, oppressive darkness closing in. Sometimes one of us will keep watch, but we’ve tacitly agreed we feel safe enough in our thicket to snag a full night’s rest. Naked I snuggle down into my bedroll and turn away from him to welcome sleep to my tired muscles. I’m just about to drift off, when I feel the heat and scarred expanse of muscle and fur melt against my back and ass. 

“Uh, Miles, I just wanna sleep, man. You’ve been ignoring me for days, and now that you caught me tossing myself you get all fucking horny…” 

But I instantly sense that’s not it. His lip is trembling against my neck. I flip over to take his scratchy cheeks in my hands and rest my forehead against his. 

“Miles, just talk to me.”

He waits long enough in the darkness that I figure he either can’t or won’t express his agony. I know how dark his thoughts get. He’ll occasionally tell me his dreams, like the one where he peels off his own skin with a switchblade. Some of Miles’ trademark silence is simply the sullenness it appears, but some of it is him sparing people his worst.

He finally stutters, “I… what if there’s never anything again except us… _wandering_?” 

His comment bites, and I impulsively snap, “So I’m not enough for you; is that it?” This would explain the growing chasm between us. 

Miles reaches for my hands that I didn’t even know I’d retracted from his cheeks and whispers, “No, Bass. C’mon. That’s not it. It’s _me_. Hate listening to myself all day… It’s…” 

“Lonely?” I sigh and squeeze his big, warm fingers back. 

I feel him shrug. Miles struggles immensely without a sense of purpose, so I add, “Don’t worry. We’ll find your family in Chicago, and then we’ll figure out where to go from there.” 

I say it with such confidence that I even believe myself. It’s what we do for each other when the other wants to quit. Hell, if a little release helped me, maybe what Miles needs is a nice round of distraction. 

After kissing him gently, I pull away, our bottom lips so mended they stick together briefly before letting go. I duck under the bedroll then and take in the heady scent of the man I love, unwashed but still perfect. I kiss lightly against the cock I worship, and it swells into my lips. Instantly, his large fingers entwine in my curls and squeeze, encouraging, needy. I take him all the way in, my tongue curving around his veins and coaxing him, until he hisses my name through his teeth, seed trickling down my throat. I let him slide out between my lips on a wave of his own warm come. Then I wipe the back of my wrist across my lips in satisfaction. 

When I rejoin him on our makeshift pillow, he burrows into my neck, as I stroke his sweaty hair. 

“You’ve got to let me take care of you, okay? And you take care of me.” 

He’s nodding before I even finish saying it. 

* * *

 

**_Fourteen Weeks Post Blackout: Bass_ **

I’m tramping through the underbrush looking for signs that he’s passed this way in his nightly quest for water or berries or fish or whatever the hell he’s up to. It’s November now, and getting nippy at night. So when I see his bare back hunched over a stream, water trickling down the lean ropes of muscle, I shiver just looking at him. He knows I’m here of course. It’s our sniper awareness. But he doesn’t say anything, just lets me approach. 

I crouch behind him and spread my wind-chapped fingers over his scapula. “Hey, someone’s-” 

“I know.” 

Someone’s been following us all day, and they’re not bad at it either. Just a crush of twig and a certain feeling I get in the hairs on the back of my neck tells me it’s so. 

“Bass, look,” Miles points behind me to the left. 

I was not prepared for it to be a dog – a shaggy, black dog with outlandishly large paws. 

“She must be looking for a pack. Aw. Look at her, man!” I hold out my hand to let her know it’s safe to approach.

Miles shakes his head, because that’s all we need – another mouth to feed. But he lets her sniff his hand after mine, her breath hot and nose wet. We take turns scratching behind her ears.

Miles shakes his head once more as if to say, _This isn’t a good idea_ , but when she follows us back to camp, we feed her strips from the fox we killed for dinner. By the time Miles is stringing up our pans and extra food in a nearby tree, she’s lain down by the fire, snout on her two front paws like she’s been with us from the beginning.

“Just don’t get attached, Bass.”

“Don’t worry, Dog,” I say to our furry companion. “Miles sounds gruff, but he’s really a softy.” I glance over at Miles just in time to catch him rolling his eyes. 

Then his big body settles in behind me, conforming to my nooks and angles. He slides a hand down my pec to my stomach and rubs, plunging blood downward as he no doubt intends.

“Hey, not in front of the children,” I object half-heartedly until his nimble fingers are undoing my belt. 

“What’ya say we hit the tent and let the dog play sentry tonight?” 

It doesn’t take much to get me to agree, and in a moment, we’re naked on the bedrolls – me straddling his lap, his legs spayed out beneath me and mine wrapped around his waist. My tongue slides between his lips, as he kneads our spit-slicked cocks against one another with almost crushing pressure. Then he lets them go with a bounce and grabs hold of my chin with both hands to thoroughly drink in my mouth, our tongues thrusting against each other for a deep, longing mouth-fuck. Miles isn’t half-ass about anything. 

We eventually shift to our sides facing one another, and I pull in his butt so he’s as flush against me as possible, our hard-ons smashed into one another, red and throbbing. Pausing our kiss, I suck in my finger between my lips and bury it between his buttcheeks, relishing his groan when I coax open his tight ring of muscles. He follows suit, dipping _his_ finger into my mouth and then pushing several times against my entrance before digging in. We mirror each other’s twists and proddings, sweating and panting into the other’s mouths and grinding cocks till they burn. 

Miles growls, “Deeper, Bass.” He always loses patience first. 

“You want me in you?” I whisper to him privately, as if the dog could understand on the other side of the nylon tent. 

He nuzzles against my neck and nods. Inexplicably, he has a hard time admitting he wants this. It always makes me a little sad that he thinks there’s wrong in it, that there’s even a possibility our sex together shames him. I pull away and let him turn his back to me so that we’re spooning. His body softens for me when I ease in, stretching him wide and relishing his hot slickness from the inside. 

I let my cheek fall on his shoulder and kiss the ink of his upper arm. “That deep enough, babe?” I murmur, knowing the answer. He grunts, one hand covering his face, but I pull it away to kiss the coarse fingers, each individually, smelling of dirt. 

I start working his hole in little circles, his moaning telling me how much he wants this even if he can’t put it to words. My cock feels huge and constricted in his narrow passage. I suddenly need to come. 

“Uh, Miles, can I go harder?” 

“Yeah,” he urges, trying to reach around backward to thrust my hips in further, even though I’m already as deep as I could possibly be. 

I slam into him, and Christ, does the man sweat. It’s absurd but I realize he’s coming mostly from the beating on his prostate since I’m barely fingering his cock. It’s oozing seed on me now, his passage spasming and forcing me to come too. Each wave of my orgasm clenches my muscles so hard I feel almost sick to my stomach. I stroke him carefully then, velvet dick smeared wet, as I draw out on my own seed. 

Kissing his rough neck, I thank him, because, well, he’s amazing, and he’s mine. I’m never surer of that than when I’ve been inside him. 

* * *

 

**_Seventeen Weeks Post Blackout: Miles_ **

He wanted to stop in Jasper. I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, though there was some remote chance Ben would have come here. He didn’t, and Bass and I have been mostly trying to avoid the people we know for fear they’ll cling to us. It’s apparent to both of us that our training has kept us not only safe but sane through this ordeal. We can’t afford to get sidetracked helping people. Not until we’ve found my brother. 

The town doesn’t look all that different – the gazebo in the center, the old, oppressive church. Only thing that’s new is the graveyard is a lot fuller than last time we saw it. And that’s where I’ve left Bass (with the dog… _our_ dog) to have a moment with his memories, kneeling before his family’s graves on the crackly, frozen ground amidst fog so thick it looks violet. 

I’m keeping an eye on Bass from a respectable distance though I don’t want him to know it. He’s armed, and well, it just makes me nervous when he’s there with his family and a loaded gun. I’ve never been so scared as when I saw that gun dangling from his fingers two and a half years ago – have never stopped feeling like there’s just a hair that separates Bass from being lost to me forever. 

I give him a decent amount of time to do what he needs to do and then approach his hunched figure, now cross-legged before the four headstones. The dog sits proudly beside William’s grave, looking out over the landscape with a kind of wise expression that says she’s seen it all before. And I suppose she has at this point. The tragedy that Bass endured, so inconceivable at the time, has become the new normal. 

“You ready?” I ask him as gently as possible, though my voice always sounds rough. I lay my hand on his shoulder. That’s when I realize he’s shaking. 

“Oh, Bass.” I plop down beside him and gather him against my chest. He feels so small when he cries, and I hate that. My shirt is soaked with his tears, freezing against my skin by the time I get him up and onward. We’ve got to go though; people will start coming out of the houses. We’re not strangers here.

That night when we stop, Bass refuses to go into the tent and let me keep watch. He just wraps his arms and legs around me, and I throw a blanket over us, while he sleeps on me like that baby koala we saw together at the zoo when we were on base in San Diego. The dogs settles against my thigh, generating enough warmth to keep me from freezing to death after the fire dies down and I can’t bring myself to move Bass to tend to it. I have a hell of a time staying awake and probably only succeed about 40% of the time, but I keep my gun in my hand 100% of the time. Every now and then the dog raises her nose in the air, so between the two of us, we maybe have it covered. Bass gets terribly heavy at some point, but I deal, occasionally reaching down to kiss his nearly-frozen curls when he shifts and heaves sorrowful little sighs. 

I can’t afford him drifting like this. Survival is too taxing as it is. I’m suddenly aware of how much I need him, that without him here with me, I’m not sure how long I could sustain this search. Finding my brother may be our current purpose, but it is Bass that gives my days meaning and structure. Him and, I suppose, this dog. 

Dawn is breaking over the horizon, pale and unpromising, when I whisper to Bass’ curls: “Love you,” and thread my fingers into the dense, warm fur of the dog. She cranes her head around to lick my hand, and Bass finally cracks open his eyes and rolls off my half-aching, half-numb legs and stumbles away to hit the head. 

* * *

 

**_Nineteen Weeks Post Blackout: Miles_ **

I know how shaken up he is by the dog. Someone or some _thing_ killed her in the night. We found her insides strewn near camp. It’s my fault. I fell asleep on my watch. She must have wandered away to get water and met her match. It could have been Bass who died. Christ. It could have been Bass. How could I have been so careless?

I see it then – a small, green sign against the gray highway we’re plodding along. A glance at Bass tells me he’s still staring at his feet, so I clear my throat to speak, but my mouth is so dry nothing comes out. 

Instead I intertwine my too-thick, ugly fingers into his graceful, leans ones and squeeze. I nod and point, and the bright, blue eyes drift up to read it. 

_Chicago: Population 2.715 million_

We walk into the city holding hands, and I keep the pressure on the whole time so that he doesn’t slip away.


End file.
